The Potential of a Brown Paper Bag

This post is a blast from the past...seeing as I didn't have a blog to brag in the past, I'm taking advantage now. Quite a few years ago, I found a phenomenal Hawaii based artist named Moses who was featured as the 'Mad Hatter' in the July 2000 issue of the Smithsonian archives. Moses is a an artist that made an extraordinary series of hats from a simple brown paper bag.

As some of my readers know I teach high-school visual arts at the Englewood School in Englewood NJ. To begin the spring term of the Studio Arts II portfolio development class that focuses on the three-dimensional arts, I presented my class with some inspiration references from both Moses, and the design show Project Runway to see what they could do with lots of 250 brown paper bags that I got from a local dollar store.

These days I can no longer find the site, luckily blogger Mr.Paper's Blog did a write up on Moses that showcases Mose's phenomenal paper bag hats. Please click on the link and check it out!!! I was so inspired, I had my students explore principles of design through the designing of their hats and years later I am still blown away by the results. They were allowed to pierce, sew, wrinkle, fold, cut, burn, shred, layer, glue, braid, paper mache and anything else they could think of to their bags. I am so proud of these now alumni students and the job they did honoring Moses and his work, as well as invoking their inner designers.

So this is what they come up:

Don't Forget to post your 'rainbird' comment on the giveaway post (two posts back) to win your print - I am getting some amazing comments and it will surely be difficult to choose! One person suggested the winner should also do a giveaway - that would surely be in the nature of Guerilla Art so I think its a great idea!!!!!